• Save the Date: Rebuilding Together Community Service Event
  
  Ask Counselor Tara (ACT)
  
  Comments Solicited on Draft Body of Knowledge (Second Edition)
  
  2008 Issues Survey - Last Call
  
  August Isn't Just About the Beach!
  
  Membership
  
  Deadline for Nominations for Historic Civil Engineering Landmark
  
  Symposium on Emerging Developments in Multi-Hazard Engineering
  
  Lessons Learned from Hurricane Katrina: ASCE President Enlists Section/Branch Help to Disseminate the Professional/Ethical Implications
  
  Conferences
  
  Leadership and Management in Engineering Journal Special Issue: "Engineers, Infrastructure and Politics"--Call for Papers
  
  Region Boards of Governors
  
  Committee on Geographic Units
  
  Executives
  
  Geographic Services Department
  
  Contact Information
  
• ASCE

  Nov. 4, 7:30 a.m.— 5:00 p.m.

Rebuilding Together

Location to be determined

Let’s Make a Difference in Orlando!

The ASCE Committee on Volunteer Community Service and Rebuilding Together®, an organization devoted to revitalizing houses for low-income homeowners, proudly announce their fifth annual community service event at the ASCE Annual Conference.  Last year’s event in Chicago involved repairing library bookshelves, painting, removing cabinets, and replacing ceiling and floor tiles.

Don’t miss this opportunity to put your engineering skills to work for a good cause and help us make a difference in Orlando! 

If you are interested in participating, please contact Alicia Karwoski at 800-548-2723 ext. 6324, or akarwoski@asce.org.  Look for more details in the Section Informant as they become available. 

Counselor Tara,

I've been watching the news coverage on the flooding in the southern Plains states and I want to offer my civil engineering expertise. Does ASCE have a policy on volunteering?

When floods and other disasters strike, leaving victims without basic necessities such as food, medicine, and shelter, a community’s recovery often depends on the willingness of volunteers to aid in disaster relief. Unfortunately, this same willingness to help can also expose volunteers to legal liability for actions taken in an emergency situation. The threat of liability is of particular concern to skilled professionals in fields such as medicine or engineering, because the critical nature of the services they provide presents a greater risk for mistakes which could result in serious injury, death or property damage.

Understanding that the threat of personal liability may deter volunteers from offering their professional expertise in an emergency, a number of laws have been enacted at the state and federal level to protect volunteers from liability for actions taken in rendering emergency services.

At the federal level, the 1997 Volunteer Protection Act (VPA) offers immunity from civil liability for volunteers serving nonprofit organizations or government entities, provided that: 1) the volunteer was acting within the scope of his/her responsibilities at the time of the incident; 2) the volunteer was appropriately licensed or certified to perform the type of service involved; and 3) the harm was not caused by an act of willful misconduct or conscious indifference to the safety of the persons involved. The Act also excludes harms caused by negligent operating of a motor vehicle.

Unfortunately, several gaps in the VPA make this federal protection a less-than-perfect solution to the threat of legal liability. First, the VPA gives states broad authority to opt out of the Act, or to place additional constraints on eligibility within the state. For example, states may permit suits against a volunteer by an officer of the government, or may require the sponsoring entity to provide mandatory training before its volunteers can receive civil immunity.

Second, the VPA provides protection only to the individual volunteers themselves, meaning that nonprofit organizations or entities which sponsor volunteer work may be held liable for the volunteer’s negligent acts. Finally, the VPA applies only to third-party suits against negligent volunteers and expressly permits suits by government or nonprofit sponsors against the individual volunteers. This raises the possibility that, even if the VPA bars direct litigation by an injured party, a volunteer may be held indirectly accountable if his/her sponsor is forced to pay the injured party and then sues the volunteer for compensation.

The Volunteer Protection Act is intended to serve only where state law does not provide greater protection to volunteers, and many states offer civil litigation protections that expand on the protections of the VPA. A handful of states, including Alabama, Virginia and New Jersey, provide charitable immunity protections that bar or limit damages for suits brought against a charity by its beneficiaries. Many states have enacted “Good Samaritan” legislation to protect licensed health professionals who stop to render aid in an emergency. In addition, a growing number of states have begun to extend this “Good Samaritan” protection to design professionals such as architects and engineers who volunteer services in a disaster recovery effort.

For example, in Louisiana, Revised Statute 37 §1736B provides that any architect, professional engineer or professional land surveyor who provides voluntary services during a declared disaster, either at the request or with the approval of a federal, state or local official, will not be liable for loss or injury relating to those services, except in the event of gross negligence or willful misconduct.

Section 44.023 of the Missouri Revised Statutes bars liability for “professional engineers, construction contractors, equipment dealers and other owners and operators of construction equipment and the companies with which they are employed” for actions taken as an emergency volunteer, in the absence of willful misconduct or gross negligence.

And in Georgia, §51-1-29.2 of the Official Code says that no “natural person who voluntarily and without the expectation or receipt of compensation provides services during a time of emergency… to prevent, minimize, and repair injury and damage to property resulting from catastrophic acts of nature” will be liable for services rendered in good faith and without “willful or wanton negligence or misconduct.”

As with many other areas of state regulation, the presence and extent of "Good Samaritan" laws vary widely from state to state, and many leave open questions such as whether coverage restricted to “licensed professionals” will provide protection for out-of-state engineers rendering volunteer services. As such, many professional associations have joined ASCE in advocating a uniform federal statute that provides civil immunity for design professionals rendering volunteer services.

In the past decade, several attempts have been made to pass federal "Good Samaritan" legislation. Most recently, H.R. 2067, the “Good Samaritan Protection for Construction, Architectural and Engineering Volunteers Act,” was introduced in the House of Representatives in April 2007. If passed, this bill would provide civil immunity for any engineering entity (including persons, sole proprietorships, partnerships, LLCs or corporations) that provides professional services, on a good-faith volunteer basis, in a declared emergency or disaster. For information on this bill and its status, visit: http://www.thomas.gov.

If you have questions about this article, or about any legal matter concerning your ASCE section or branch, please contact Tom Smith, ASCE general counsel, at (800) 548-2723, x6061 (e-mail: tsmith@asce.org) or Tara Hoke, assistant general counsel, at (800) 548-2723, x6151 (thoke@asce.org).

ASCE Policy Statement 465 states that “the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) supports the attainment of a Body of Knowledge (BOK) for entry into the practice of civil engineering at the professional level.”  The BOK is defined as the depth and breadth of knowledge, skills and attitudes required of an individual entering the professional practice of civil engineering.  The BOK is strategic and foundational to our profession because it ultimately influences public understanding of our profession, accreditation criteria, curricula, the Engineer Intern experience and licensure requirements.

ASCE released the first edition of the BOK in early 2004 and is now releasing a refined, enhanced and updated version in draft form for your review.  This second edition of the BOK was prepared by the Body of Knowledge Committee of CAP^3 (Committee on the Academic Prerequisites for Professional Practice) in response to widespread stakeholder interest in, use of and comments about the first edition.  CAP^3 is pleased to note that the BOK has stimulated thinking and discussion about education and practice within and outside of civil engineering.  The BOK has proven to be a productive forum in which educators and practitioners come together to proactively determine how tomorrow’s civil engineers should be prepared.

You can download your copy of the draft report from www.asce.org/raisethebar anytime after July 15.  Your thoughts and comments should be sent to CAP^3 at comments@bok.asce.org.  Your input will be reviewed by the committee, and the final report will be modified as appropriate.  To consider your comments, the Body of Knowledge Committee must receive them on or before Oct. 1.  The Civil Engineering Body of Knowledge for the 21st Century (Second Edition) is scheduled for release during Engineers Week in February 2008 and will be available through www.asce.org/raisethebar.

Your opportunity to help direct ASCE’s 2008 public policy course is coming to a close.  July 11 is the last day to participate in the 2008 Issues Survey.  Share your views on which issues are most important to the civil engineering profession by completing the easy online survey.  Visit http://www.asce.org/govrel and click on the link at the top of the page.

Results from the survey will be used to determine the Society’s priority issues for 2008.  For information on the 2007 priority issues, click on the “Policies & Priorities” link from the Government Relations Web page at http://www.asce.org/govrel.  Questions?  Contact the Government Relations Department at govwash@asce.org or 202-789-7850.

Plan now to participate in the Back Home Visit Program   Most federal elected officials spend a good chunk of August at home in the district, which means you have the opportunity to visit with your lawmakers without making a trip to Washington, D.C. 

• Check local media and/or your elected officials’ Web sites for local appearances or office hours – these are great opportunities to meet lawmakers in a casual setting and pose a few questions to start a dialogue.
• Gather a small group (no more than five) of Section or Branch members to participate in a Back Home Visit. Contact ASCE Government Relations for assistance at govwash@asce.org or 202-789-7850.
• For more tips and information, visit http://www.asce.org/keycontacts

Why Did I Get This? I’m Already a Member!

By William P. Henry, P.E., D.WRE, F.ASCE

ASCE Past President

ASCE has embarked on a major membership development campaign. We have found that the most cost-effective way to identity potential members is through the use of mailing lists that we purchase from other organizations. It’s not surprising that some of our ASCE members are also active in these other organizations. Each mailing list ASCE uses is electronically cross-checked with our member listings. However, if our members’ exact names and mailing addresses are different on the two lists, then a match is not noted. For this reason, ASCE members sometimes get a solicitation from ASCE asking them to join. It would be prohibitively costly to do a manual screen to ensure that no ASCE member gets this unwanted mailing.

Given that we want to increase membership, and given that the electronic screening is imperfect, we have two choices should we receive a request to join ASCE. Our first choice is to complain loudly about ASCE’s inefficiency as evidenced by receipt of the invitation. However, receipt of the invitation really shows ASCE’s efficiency in using the best electronic screening devices known, but recognizing that perfection is not something we can afford.

Our second choice is to pass the membership application on to someone you think should be a member. Please return the invitation letter (with your name and address on it) to ASCE. ASCE will note your address and ensure that future promotions are not sent to this address.

I hope you’ll join me in the second choice should you, as an active ASCE member, receive an inadvertent invitation to join our Society during our membership campaign. Hopefully the person to whom you give the application will become ASCE’s newest member!

                                                               -Reprinted from ASCE News, 2005

“Rev it Up” with ASCE New Member Recruitment Incentives

Get your summer into high gear by nominating a friend or colleague for ASCE membership and be in the running for 1 of 10 $50 gas cards.  It’s the last quarter of the 2006-2007 Member-Get-a-Member drive. The "Top Recruiter" title, as well as a hefty $700 prize are still up for grabs.  Remember, each recruit who joins earns their sponsor an entry into the drawing.  Help your colleagues discover why more than 140,000 civil engineers have made ASCE their professional home.  Direct your members to www.ascedrive.org.

ASCE Delivers at Your Next Meeting

Recruit your new ASCE Section/Branch members and volunteers by hosting a pizza party on us.   Champions can contact Susan Blodgett at sblodgett@asce.org to request materials and they will receive: ASCE cups, napkinsplates and a Power Point presentation deliverable to non-members attending the meeting, as well as applications and brochures.  Plus, the pizza is on us!

Nominate an Outstanding Membership Champion

Your Section/Branch Membership Champion can be key in the success of your Membership Drive, as well as membership growth and retention.  Now is the time to recognize your Champion for his/her hard work by submitting a nomination for the 2007 Outstanding Membership Champion Award.

The winner and the Section, selected by the ASCE Membership Committee at its fall meeting, will each receive $250. 

Nomination forms are due Sept. 1 and are available online at www.asce.org/inside/files/doc/2004OutsMemChairNomForm1.doc or by contacting Susan Blodgett at (703) 295-6008 or sblodgett@asce.org.

FTP Hint of the Month

Contact Members with Similar Technical Interests

How well do you know your members? Use your membership data to extract information about their technical interests. This information can be helpful for activities such as formation and retention of local technical groups, developing and marketing technical meeting topics and seminars, and membership development and retention efforts.

Members' technical interests are indicated in the "enrollment" fields in your membership data. Members may prioritize the interest areas in which they have enrolled, with "1" indicating their primary level of interest. To see how members have prioritized each of their interest areas, look in the "degree of iInterest" field that accompanies each "enrollment" field. We suggest that you focus only on interest levels "1" and "2;" the data on the lower interest levels is not significant.

To better serve members' technical needs, this data and the collection parameters have been recently updated. The data will be meaningful with the February download, after the majority of renewals have been returned.

Nominations for 2008 Society Awards Now Being Accepted

Please help ASCE recognize members’ considerable achievements by nominating your supervisor, mentor or colleague for a Society Award.  Nominations for some awards are due to the Honors and Awards program office by Oct. 1; many others must be received by Nov. 1 (check the calendar for official deadlines).  It is not too early to begin the nomination process.  For more information on all Society awards, downloadable forms and special resources to help identify awards your candidate might qualify for visit www.asce.org/awards.  

Topics to be explored include lessons learned from 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, fundamental measures to improve disaster resilience, multi-hazard engineering in Los Angeles and New York City, Federal Emergency Management Agency multi-hazard risk assessments and improving resilience of transportation infrastructure. Nationally recognized researchers and practitioners from industry, academia and government will discuss a variety of solutions and applications, including adapting technologies developed for specific hazards to multi-hazard problems and developing new technologies to mitigate a variety of threats. The goal of the symposium is to establish an integrated risk assessment framework for multi-hazard environments and address assessment and mitigation of risk from competing low probability high consequence hazards. For more information on the AEI-MCEER Symposium on Emerging Developments in Multi-Hazard Engineering, or to register online, visit: http://mceer.buffalo.edu/meetings/aei/default.asp .

The devastation caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita exposed the vulnerability of our nation’s coastal communities to natural disasters and, unfortunately, uncovered significant flaws in the planning, design and management of the New Orleans-area hurricane protection system. The lessons learned from the study and analyses of these events have important professional and ethical implications for all civil engineers.

In a letter e-mailed last month to all Section and Branch presidents, ASCE President Bill Marcuson asked for help in disseminating this information to the broadest possible number of civil engineers. Sections and Branches are asked to host a special web-based seminar developed by ASCE. The free webinar will be offered on both Sept. 14, from noon to 1:30 p.m. Eastern time and on Tuesday, Sept. 18, from 7:30 to 9 p.m. Eastern time.

Resulting from the exhaustive research performed by the Interagency Evaluation Task Force (IPET) and ASCE’s Hurricane Katrina External Review Panel (ERP), this webinar will explore new insights into how organizational, managerial and funding considerations can adversely influence public health, safety and welfare.

Gerry Galloway, professor of civil engineering at the University of Maryland and a retired brigadier general with the Corps who led the White House study of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1993, will present the webinar.

A free site registration for one of the two sessions will be provided to each interested Section and Branch. An unlimited number of individuals may participate at this location.

For more details, click here. To register, please contact Kelly Jarvis at (703)295-6164, or e-mail kjarvis@asce.org.

Hydraulic Measurements & Experimental Methods 2007

Registration Deadline Extended to July 9, 2007!

Register Today!

When: Sept. 10-12

Where: Lake Placid, N.Y.

Details: http://content.asce.org/conferences/HMEM07/welcome.html

The early registration deadline has been extended. Register by July 9, 2007 and receive up to $100 in savings.

This conference is jointly sponsored by Environmental and Water Resources Institute (EWRI) of ASCE and the International Association of Hydraulic Engineering and Research (IAHR).

» The full technical program is available on the HMEM 2007 Web site.

» The conference hotel is the Crowne Plaza Resort & Golf Club. The conference hotel reservation discount rate deadline is August 10. For complete details on the conference hotel and reservation rates, please visit http://content.asce.org/conferences/HMEM07/hotel.html. 

James E. Roberts / Prof. Ben C. Gerwick, Jr. Memorial California Bridge Conference

Sept. 17 - 22, Sacramento, CA

Website: www.roberts-gerwick-conference.org

The Sacramento Section of ASCE invites you to attend and participate in the James E. Roberts, P.E. and Professor Ben C. Gerwick, Jr., P.E. Memorial California Bridge Conference. This conference will consist of three days of classes, a two-day symposium of two parallel tracks of papers presented on California bridges and foundations, and a boat tour of the San Francisco / Oakland Bay Bridge and Richmond / San Rafael Bridges. The symposium will feature tunnel engineering papers in the foundation track.

Each day of the symposium, each class and the boat tour may be purchased separately or in any combination.  To register for the symposium, classes and/or boat tour, visit www.roberts-gerwick-conference.org.

Call for Abstracts: Open until July 30

Sponsorships and Exhibits: Open

Registration:  Open

Contact:

ASCE, Sacramento Section

P.O. Box 2997

Citrus Heights, CA 95611-2997

Phone & Fax: (916) 961-2723

E-mail: asce@asce-sacto.org

Conference Chair: Alfred Mangus

Phone: (916) 205-1962

E-mail: mangusalf@aol.com

Web site: www.roberts-gerwick-conference.org

The 7th International Symposium on Field Measurements

in Geomechanics (FMGM)

Sept. 24-27, 2007

Boston Park Plaza & Towers

To Register. Save up to $100 with early bird registration.

Become an Exhibitor: Exhibit spaces are limited.

Sponsor Sought for Closing Banquet Cocktail/Bar.

Reserve Your Hotel Room Today. Special conference hotel rate: $227.00. Single/Double

This Geo-Institute three-day Symposium will concentrate on geotechnical, structural, environmental and geophysical instrumentation methods and applications for monitoring performance of facilities. The program is built around three major themes: case studies, state-of-the-art and future trends and the business side of instrumentation and will showcase professionals, equipment, methods and organizations associated with making field performance measurements to help manage risks in the design, construction and operation of engineered facilities.

Click here to review the FMGM Technical Program.

You are invited to submit an article to Leadership and Management in Engineering (LME) for a special issue focusing on engineers and politics.  This special issue, “Engineers, Infrastructure, and Politics,” focuses on the evolution and state of infrastructure policy and decision making with its associated achievements, shortcomings and future prospects for collaborative leadership.

Please submit your abstracts to Dr. W. M. Hayden Jr., P.E., F.ASCE at

wmhayden@buffalo.edu by Oct. 31.  Submitted papers should not have been previously published nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. All papers are subject to editorial review and approval. A guide for authors, sample copies and other relevant information for submitting papers is available online: http://www.pubs.asce.org/authors/index.html.

For more information on the special issue, click here.

Hurricane Katrina: Are You Ready?

July 20

Hurricane Katrina: Soil Erosion and Protection ~ Part V

July 27

Hurricane Katrina: Wave Forces and Overtopping ~ Part VI

Aug. 03

Hurricane Katrina: Wave Forces on Bridge Decks and Design Implications ~ Part VII

Aug. 10

Hurricane Katrina: Societal Impacts and Hazard Mitigation ~ Part VIII

Aug. 17

Hurricane Katrina: Levee and Floodwall Performance I ~ Part IX

Aug. 24

Hurricane Katrina: Levee and Floodwall Performance II ~ Part X

Aug. 31

Hurricane Katrina: Geodetic Vertical and Water Datums ~ Part XI

Sept. 07

Hurricane Katrina: Interior Drainage and Pump Stations ~ Part XII

Sept. 14

Hurricane Katrina: Ethical Obligations Exposed ~ Part XIII